It’s worth mentioning that the only reason this is happening is because I was driven by desperation to buy from eBay, who has implemented, in the last year or so, this egregious and borderline-illegal Global Shipping Program, a genius way to overcharge buyers dreamed up by eBay and Pitney-Bowes (yeah, the postage meter guys).
The deal is that they allow sellers to, at no charge to them, opt into the program, and the sellers just need to ship (domestically) to the GSP center. Normally nobody doing this level of business uses carriers like UPS or FedEx because their rates are exorbitant.
But not only does the program force buyers to do business with these pricks (with higher rates and a buttload of ma fan not present in other methods), the real genius is that, on top of the shipping fees, they provide prepayment of customs and duty charges.
Irrespective of whether such charges are actually applied.
Irrespective of whether the buyer wants it.
AND, to cap the whole thing off the charge never shows up on the invoice prior to agreeing to pay.
That’s right, you never see the charge until you’ve made your payment.
I’m not kidding, you agree to pay XX.XX and then receive a receipt for XX.XX PLUS 10 to 30 bucks MORE.
Once again, you have no choice whether to use the “service”.
And yeah, once again, they keep the fee even if no Customs charges are applied.
Sorry, I’m kind of getting my tail in a knot here.
I wrote to them when this whole shit show started and complained, since, like most anyone who’s careful, I never have to pay Customs on International Shipments to Taiwan for personal use.
They said, and I’m not really paraphrasing here, if you don’t like it, go pound sand up your ass.
So I rarely buy from there any more.